[Stoves] Moisture content in wood - field data

[Tom Miles]

Crispin,

There may be activities by other organizations in the area which will
identify the various families of species that are used. In that way we can
bracket the key characteristics of the wood. 

Tom

-----Original Message-----
From: stoves-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:stoves-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Crispin
Pemberton-Pigott
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2007 12:45 AM
To: Stoves
Subject: Re: [Stoves] Moisture content in wood - field data

Dear Tom

>Can you give us a list of species or common names? 

Wow....well yes and no.  We collected a LOT of information relating to the
operation of care points but we did not attach wood species names to the tag
that was the wood sample for the reason that we had no guarantee that the
surveyor would know what they were.

Excess of information....!  Well, we did collect the local names of wood
found when it was identifiable, we collected wood samples and got the
moisture content.  We have not managed to work out how much of each species
would have been used at a site.  If there were 5 species being burned we
don't know how much of each was put into the fire and the moisture content
of each species.

To me, it looks valuable to have a species use and moisture content related
survey but the information is getting really detailed at that level in
investigation.  We are trying to prove that certain savings can be
'guaranteed' justifying the programme.

The concentration was placed on getting the food and water mass measured,
the timing of boiling and simmering to get the stove efficiency and the wood
burned with an 'average' moisture content.

It is not perfect but the technical demands become overwhelming when under
time pressure.  I think we have about 270 pieces of information from each
site with the staff collecting info in 42 sections or 'questions'.

If you want to know the species only, that we have.  A surprising amount of
it is from exotic species showing that without imported trees and
afforestation there would be a lot less to burn in Swaziland.  The amount of
forest cover in Swaziland has increased appreciably in the past 100 years.
One often finds Jacaranda and Pine in the woodpile and a number of fruit
trees.

Regards
Crispin
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